Off Beat

The Danish label Ganni, one of fashion’s most successful contemporary brands, has been hitting all the right notes lately. Its secret? Daring to care

- Rosana Lai

As isolated and anxious as the rest of the pandemic-stricken world, Ditte Reffstrup, at her home in Copenhagen, had the song You’re Not Alone by Olive on repeat. Music, she says, was the one constant in a year of disrupted plans. “It has always been something I turned to for comfort or for a change of mindset,” says Ditte, who has been the creative director of the Danish contemporary fashion label Ganni for more than a decade. So for her fall-winter 2021 collection, she staged a three-day online concert in February with performances by local artists Zsela, Deb Never and Coco O that included a version of that hypnotic tune on the setlist. “I just wanted to reach our community with that song, to help them recognise that we’re all feeling the same way.”

Ganni’s community consists of a sizeable fanbase of self-described “Ganni Girls”, whose members include Rihanna, Priyanka Chopra and top Scandi influencers like Pernille Teisbak. They all fell in love with a style Reffstrup made famous: a boyish twist on girly, seersucker frocks grounded in a sense of Danish practicality that always seem to capture the mood of the moment. And Ganni is definitely having a moment.